Understanding the depth of 3R’s roots requires us to go beyond British Malaya and its formal institutions to the wider regional context. This article will consider the roles played by Siam and its Malay Muslim tributaries, made apparent in British Foreign Office records from 1895 to 1902, when a group of rulers of these tributaries made covert requests to British officials to colonise their polities—with their permission.

Recognising the potential threat to their interests of being assigned to Siam, these rulers openly deployed an early version of the “Race, Religion, and Royalty” (3R) conflation as a rationale for joining the British “protectorate” instead…. Their attempts to prevent their Siamese incorporation rehearsed many of the arguments for 3R that Malaysians might hear today.

These rulers—the sultans of Kelantan, Patani, Sai, Legeh and Terengganu—had been put in an invidious position in 1896. After more than a century of deferrals, the question of enacting a peninsular boundary between Siam and Britain was finally declared open for negotiation. Recognising the potential threat to their interests of being assigned to Siam, these rulers openly deployed an early version of the 3R conflation as a rationale for joining the British “protectorate” instead. Despite their efforts, in 1902, all their polities were nominally incorporated within Siam, where they, with Kedah and its offshoot, Perlis, remained, until Kelantan, Terengganu, Kedah and Perlis were transferred to British Malaya in 1909, leaving Patani, Sai and Legeh in Siam. Their attempts to prevent their Siamese incorporation rehearsed many of the arguments for 3R that Malaysians might hear today.

In contrast with the Siamese alternative, the narrow, “traditional” sphere of religion and custom offered by Britain appeared a stronger position for these rulers. To pursue it, they worked against the odds, communicating with British officials, despite the risk of detention by Bangkok. In their appeals, they posited Malay Muslim identity as the key criterion for membership of a new spatial entity then under construction—British Malaya.